The portable toilet on the west side of the Porter Park parking lot appeared to have been tipped over Saturday.

We’ve gotten a few inquiries about some seemingly odd rearrangement of the portable toilets in the parking lot of Porter Park, so we thought we’d check in with Prairie Village public works to see what was going on.

Public Works director Keith Bredehoeft said the department had moved the ADA compliant portable toilet from behind an enclosure surrounded by pine trees as a way to discourage what appears to be problematic usage of the facility. Bredehoeft said the department suspects that an individual struggling with alcoholism had been using the toilet to binge drink, and then was losing his or her faculties, causing sanitary issues.

“We think that this is probably someone who has some challenges, and they have started to establish a pattern of use,” Bredehoeft said. “We’re trying to change the conditions so we can discourage the pattern.”

The department moved the toilet into a more visible area to make it a less attractive destination for such use patterns. Bredehoeft said the department had also added another toilet to the parking lot since the park gets a lot of use. That toilet on the west side of the parking lot appeared to have been tipped over on Saturday, but Bredehoeft said that event was likely unrelated to the issues with the ADA compliant toilet.